I was normal once. I remember what it was like. I had a career and a family. I was doing something with my life. And then 9/11 happened. I think a part of me died along with my brothers when those towers fell, and I haven't been the same since. I don't know what made me decide to enlist in the military, really, besides thinking that I needed to do something to avenge my brother's deaths.
Instead, I was made into a monster by my own government. A killing machine designed to eradicate my enemy with deadly precision unlike anything ever seen before. I wasn't human anymore – no longer was I the same Vincent I had been back in med school. I honestly don't even know what I am, besides a danger to everyone if I walked the streets freely.
Then I met Catherine, and I felt human again, if even for whatever brief time we spent together. Cat doesn't see me as a freak, or a monster. She sees me as a man. She's seen both sides of me: the good and the bad in the short time we've known each other, and yet she doesn't judge me. She only wants to help me in whatever capacity she can. She knows all my secrets, and even though we're both in danger because of it, she still wants to be around me.
She is beautiful and kind, sassy and stubborn, smart and witty – pretty much the complete package. I feel like I have known her for my whole life – I guess that happens when you follow someone for seven years and keep an eye on them. Even when I am perched on her fire escape on her birthday waiting for her to notice me somehow, even when I watch as she kisses that pretentious playboy doctor she works with – even then – I still think she is the most wonderful being in the world. JT would roll his eyes and snort at me for saying so, but maybe it's time I came clean to myself about how I feel.